The Jack of Hearts
by kalirush
Summary: What is it about Jack? The Doctor ponders his newest companion.
1. A heart with room for millions

The Doctor leaned against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. His leather jacket and wool jumper looked entirely out of place on this planet- they seemed to prefer lightweight, bright colored fabrics- but his expression did not invite others to comment on his fashion choices. He was frowning as he watched a couple sitting at a café across the street. The man- handsome Jack- laughed, and kissed his tablemate's hand. She was a local woman dressed in a sheer turquoise and purple chiton, and she blushed fuschia as Jack smiled at her.

The locals were more-or-less humanoid. A little taller, tending to be slenderer with long necks and pale lavender skin. This woman had short, pink hair (which had roughly the status of blonde hair, in this culture), and an elegant bone structure. Pretty, by this planet's standards, certainly. Jack always had an eye for pretty, no matter where or when he found himself.

She was leaning over the table, whispering something into Jack's ear. Now it was Jack's turn to blush, laughing. He raised an eyebrow at her suggestively, and said something back to her. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

But the truth was, as experienced as Jack might be, he could still be made to blush. Jack had that peculiar quality common to all the truly great lovers the Doctor'd met- Errol Flynn, Giacomo Casanova, Catherine the Second: he always bore his feelings openly with someone he loved.

Jack also had the other ability necessary to be a really legendary lover of men, women and others: he never slept with anyone he didn't love. Jack understood that love doesn't have to be forever to be true- that it can be honest, and still not require you to possess your lover or be possessed by them.

The Doctor admired that, much as it horrified him. Jack was strong enough to open his heart to the world, to love and to lose, and never to regret having done it. Most people love one or two people at a time. Jack seemed to have room in his heart for millions. He listened to his lovers, remembered them, and cared about them, even the ones he would meet once and never see again.

The Doctor himself was much less flexible. He had never been good about goodbyes, and it was too hard, too painful to let himself care about someone he'd only lose tomorrow. It was difficult enough to travel with these fragile, temporary humans- harder still to be alone, though.

A shadow passed over the Doctor's face, and he turned away, stopped watching Jack. For a moment, there was a desperate loneliness in his eyes.

Rose came up beside him, and it passed. "Well," she said, "Three orders of somethin' that's _like_ chips. Sort of." She shrugged. "Where's Jack got to?"

The Doctor gestured at Jack with a thumb. "Enjoyin' the local color," he said. "Which, if you haven't noticed, is evidently pink an' lavender."

Rose snorted, popping one of the purple sort-of-chips into her mouth. "That's so like him," she said, rolling her eyes. "Always on the pull. Shall I run over and tell him we're ready to go?" she asked.

"Nah," the Doctor answered. "Leave him be. He's makin' a friend, and you can't have too many of those."


	2. Brokenhearted

Jack stood in the back of the lab, arms folded across his chest. There didn't seem to be anything he could do to help at the moment, so he figured staying out of the way was the best course. Martha was across the room talking to Chantho. Jack could see them giggling together about something. The Doctor was rewiring some part of the engine control mechanism, babbling rapidly at Professor Yana all the while.

It was strange for him, accepting this man as his Doctor. If he hadn't seen the photographs of Rose Tyler stepping out of the TARDIS, hand in hand with this man, he wasn't sure he could ever have believed it. But Rose had been there through the change, and he trusted Rose to know.

Trust was the crux of the issue, he realized. Jack had always trusted people. He wasn't stupid, mind- he didn't trust people to do what he wanted, or anything. Rather, he trusted an honest man to tell him the truth, and a liar to tell him falsehoods, and a coward to turn and run when things got hot, and a weasel to betray him if he ever got the chance- and a hero to do the right thing, no matter the cost. Above all, he had always trusted himself to know the difference.

He'd met the Doctor at one of the lowest times in his life, when he was trying to kid himself into thinking that he was- could be- a traitor and a coward. The Doctor'd shown him otherwise, and to Jack, he was nearly the definition of what a hero should be. Jack had trusted him implicitly. Jack had been willing to die to back up that trust. Jack _had_ died to back it up.

When he'd seen the TARDIS dematerializing without him, he'd tried to tell himself that the Doctor must have had his reasons. That he'd thought Jack was dead. That he'd had to leave for some important reason, without even trying to recover Jack's body. Much, much later, when he'd found images of the Doctor in his new body, he'd realized that he must have been regenerating at the time- a bit busy to notice one lone, strangely not-dead ex-Time-Agent.

But, through all those long, slow years, he'd doubted. He'd doubted- for the first time- the Doctor. He'd doubted himself. He'd doubted everyone he met, because a hero is something who does the right thing, no matter the cost, and how could it have been the right thing to leave a newly-resurrected Jack stranded in the middle of a station full of ash and corpses? And, if he'd been wrong about the Doctor, how could he trust himself to know anyone?

The Doctor had broken his heart, and Jack wasn't sure that a century and a half had been enough time to heal it.

* * *

The Doctor did not look at Jack, but he could feel him. Handsome Jack, witty Jack- wrong Jack. The fixed point in time. The man who cannot die.

If he was going to be honest about it (something the Doctor seemed to avoid these days- honesty opened too many forbidden and dangerous doors), the Doctor did not look at Jack because he was ashamed. He'd been wrong to run from Jack on the Game Station, and he knew it. He'd been wronger not to go back for him after he'd recovered from the regeneration sickness.

He'd been afraid, that day. Afraid, and a little out of his head, but it didn't excuse him leaving behind a man who'd died willingly to save the universe. It particularly didn't excuse the coldness he'd shown Jack just now- "Busy life, moving on"? Why had he done that?

Because if he hadn't, he'd've had to explain himself. Why couldn't he activate the Delta Wave that Jack had died to let him build? Why didn't he go back? Why did he leave Jack alone, all those years? The Doctor had no good answers.

Jack was one of the best humanity had to offer: smart, curious, compassionate and inventive. Well educated, and quick on his feet. He terrified the Doctor, just now, and not only because of his strange and unnatural immortality (and is an immortal Jack such a terrible thing?). He frightened the Doctor, because he, of all humans, stood the best chance of seeing through the Doctor's elaborately built facades. He, of all beings in the universe, might be able to see the Doctor for what he really was.


End file.
